A few days ago, I picked up a second account with Legion so I could make leveling my fleet of alts easier. Today this gets nerfed, and I see devs saying it was an issue with the game logic. It didn't seem like a logic issue to me. You made us go get characters who were able to solo level 60 content just to power up someone at level 20, and they got xp as if they were killing level 20 mobs... sounds right to me. It was just faster and easier, although painfully repetitive. I was willing to put in the time, maybe an hour or two a day.
So now I have no need of this second account anymore. I just canceled it. So that's less money coming in for you, Blizzard. I'm sorry to say. It may not matter much, seeing I'm just one person and everything. And I still love the game. But this feels a bit like a slap in the face from you, and it makes me question if I should trust you the next time I get the urge to spend money making the game more accessible for myself. Just a really bad move on your part. There's your honest feedback. I hope somebody reads it.
02/14/2018 09:09 PMPosted by Ilinaanirithey also want you to actually engage yourself in the game, not mindlessly mash keys while you sit on netflix because at the point. you aren't engaged in the game, you are performing a different task and putting less than the bare minimum of a mobile game. that is not what they want.
How many times do we have to "engage ourselves in the game" when all of the content is outdated, significantly less well-designed than contemporary content, and at least i personally have done it 26 times?
Class design at lower levels isn't conducive to engagement, either, as a low level bm hunter my "rotation" is cobra shot with a single kill command every 10 seconds until 60. Most of the classes/specs are in similar boats, with 1-2 button "rotations".
They rushed out a half-baked product and instead of trying to fix the issues with it, they're doubling down and nerfing every single form of additional experience that you can get in the vain hopes that forcing people to do it will somehow make it fun.
I think scaling was good but the system we got clearly wasn't properly tested, adjusted according to ptr feedback, or given any real thought beyond the metrics of forcing people to play more.
I guess I won't be leveling new toons for a while.
The level scaling, while itself was not a bad idea, when combined with the heirloom nerfs, make for a very unpleasant experience. Especially as a caster, and especially when there are so many mobs that can interrupt and silence.
If the quests just scaled, that would be fine, and nice, and it was what I wanted.
But the damage that my leveling characters put out is piss-poor, to the point where it's tedious.
In a game like FFXIV where lower-level mobs actually have telegraphed attacks, and the combat feels alive, it's not as much of a problem.
But here... It's pretty much 'stand in place, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2, 1, oops, shadow-locked, fire-locked, now I'll die and run back'.
For 110 levels.
The level scaling, while itself was not a bad idea, when combined with the heirloom nerfs, make for a very unpleasant experience. Especially as a caster, and especially when there are so many mobs that can interrupt and silence.
If the quests just scaled, that would be fine, and nice, and it was what I wanted.
But the damage that my leveling characters put out is piss-poor, to the point where it's tedious.
In a game like FFXIV where lower-level mobs actually have telegraphed attacks, and the combat feels alive, it's not as much of a problem.
But here... It's pretty much 'stand in place, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2, 1, oops, shadow-locked, fire-locked, now I'll die and run back'.
For 110 levels.
02/14/2018 09:12 PMPosted by Tatyanarit was never intended for a max level character to use thier max level inflated stats to carry a drastically lower leveled alt or friend through dungeons. . . . -snip-
You said it Girl~
Gurl the game was never 'intended' to just quest it was made as an OPEN WORLD meaning we could level and play the game how we wanted. If a high level friend wanted to help his low level friend in a dungeon run they could!
I was so excited for the leveling revamp, now I just want the old leveling back. The revamp has been such a mess.
I do NOT like the scaling. Never have, never will.
I want to level an alt. Its an ALT for a reason. People make alts to level as soon as possible. But now since scaling came along this patch, it honestly ruined that. It is taking FOREVER. I'd understand if it was your main to level as slow as it is, but for an alt? NO. Fix it. I worked hard for my allied races, getting exalted with all of those factions, grinding my butt off for it, just to find out that I have to level to 110 for my heritage armor, with these horrible "scaling fixes" NO. This isn't a fix. This is hell.
Bring back the old system for leveling. Exp wise. Keep the level range in different areas in Azeroth as it is (because I think its quite cool to go where you please to level).
You wonder why people try to find ways around the "normal" way of leveling now, like the power leveling with a max toon, and the invasions in Argus, because ITS TOO SLOW, AND TOO HARD NOW. It's PAINFULLY slow.
BRING BACK THE OLD SYSTEM!
I want to level an alt. Its an ALT for a reason. People make alts to level as soon as possible. But now since scaling came along this patch, it honestly ruined that. It is taking FOREVER. I'd understand if it was your main to level as slow as it is, but for an alt? NO. Fix it. I worked hard for my allied races, getting exalted with all of those factions, grinding my butt off for it, just to find out that I have to level to 110 for my heritage armor, with these horrible "scaling fixes" NO. This isn't a fix. This is hell.
Bring back the old system for leveling. Exp wise. Keep the level range in different areas in Azeroth as it is (because I think its quite cool to go where you please to level).
You wonder why people try to find ways around the "normal" way of leveling now, like the power leveling with a max toon, and the invasions in Argus, because ITS TOO SLOW, AND TOO HARD NOW. It's PAINFULLY slow.
BRING BACK THE OLD SYSTEM!
02/14/2018 08:45 PMPosted by Suréna02/14/2018 07:25 PMPosted by PoisonberryHonestly it is impossible to make these people happy anymore. Seems they want more and more and more til they are able to level 0-110 in 1 day. Completely ruins the leveling mmo aspect.
Many players just want to be able to have a lot of characters at max level.
There are many good reasons for that.
Most of the meaningful activities in the game are max level, for one thing. In addition, anything that you want to do in old content can be done much more quickly once your character is at max level.
It's fun to have many different classes to play, it's convenient to be able to switch to a better-performing spec in raids, it's natural to want to play many race/class combinations, even if just for the aesthetics.
Having lots of alts is the best way to make gold, and it's nice to be able to have geared characters on multiple servers... the list goes on and on.
The heritage armor is now another thing that people want... wait for it... at max level.
What makes the situation worse is that Blizzard has built many extra revenue streams into the game that easy alt-leveling essentially allows players to bypass.
And, while there are some legitimate reasons not to be thrilled with the idea of alts as gold and reward-generators, Blizzard has encouraged players to value gold a lot by allowing us to turn it into real money for the subscription, or other Blizzard products.
Considering all of the above, is it any wonder that people are upset that fast leveling is being removed?
Having lots of max level characters not only makes the game more fun, it can make it significantly cheaper also.
More fun, less expensive. Those are basically the two main things that players care about lol.
So, anyway. I really disliked the broken mess that leveling content had devolved into, but this issue is unlikely to disappear, because it is simply too important to players.
I actually do believe that the scaling changes improve the leveling experience substantially, in certain ways, but it's hard not to be cynical when there are so many revenue streams circumvented by expeditious leveling.
The developer can't sincerely claim that they are trying to make the experience better, when they are building revenue streams around leveling being inconvenient.
Yet, if Blizzard wanted to increase those revenue streams with more gold generation from players with multiple alts, they'd have kept the broken fast and easy leveling. More gold generated helps Blizzard since a WoW token is worth $5 more than a subscription. Hindering players with slower leveling makes it harder for players to have multiple characters doing just that. And if Blizzard wanted to truly push sales of boosted characters, they could have made leveling even harder and cut the price of boosts, yet they didn't.
What seems to have happened here is almost collective amnesia. Power-leveling low-level characters with a high-level character hasn't worked at least since Cataclysm when the change was made to how XP was gained in such situations. The greater the disparity, the less XP the low-level character made. There's countless posts going back years where players discouraged the practice since the XP gains didn't work out well with such power-leveling. It was better to power-level in groups or with others of similar levels, not one high-level character.
What happened here looks like a bug was introduced with 7.3.5 such that low-level characters were gaining XP as if they were at the maximum level for the bracket. For example, a level 20 in a 1-60 dungeon with a level 110 was gaining XP as if it was a level 60, not a level 20. Or, if it was a level 65, it was gaining XP as if it was a level 80 since that's the top of the bracket for 60-80 dungeons.
As for players with many alts, that's not a play style Blizzard has to make special accommodations in gameplay for, nor should they. Multi-boxing, for example, is allowed but Blizzard doesn't change gameplay to make multi-boxing easier even though doing so would probably generate more revenue from multi-boxers but drive other players away. So, looking at this from multiple angles, the complaints seem to overlook the reality of the situation. Leveling is still faster than for most of the game's life span. Those that want to have 10, 15, 20 alts have to realize that sacrificing gameplay for other players just for that singular play style is not conducive to a healthy game.
02/14/2018 09:09 PMPosted by Ilinaaniriit was never intended for a max level character to use thier max level inflated stats to carry a drastically lower leveled alt or friend through dungeons. the reason they didn't pay much attention to it before was because it isn't as rampant as it is now. and at the same time, they want you to explore the world and actually do open world quests. not sit in orgrimmar or stormwind where you press a button, spend an hour watching an anime on crunchy roll and check back with just 5 minutes left on the queue.
they also want you to actually engage yourself in the game, not mindlessly mash keys while you sit on netflix because at the point. you aren't engaged in the game, you are performing a different task and putting less than the bare minimum of a mobile game. that is not what they want.
an entire patch ago, in fact, an entire expansion ago, i leveled my mage through caraclysm, wrath and pandaria content with level 70 burning crusade PVP gear and didn't start redoing gear until after i finished the Warlords Tanaan introduction to get the garrisson maid. due to the draenor stat squish.
seriously. my item level wasn't even two hundred, and i was doing quests intended for a four hundred and fifty item level as a class with no crowd control and no self heals, no absorbs at the time, and i was still making short work of stuff. because the difference was barely noticeable between item levels of 480 and 170.
I've done this content so many times, it's honestly a blur to me now no matter what. I took a Nightborne up to 110 through questing and it took an ungodly amount of time. And y'know what I did when I hit cap? I got the heritage armor and I deleted the character. I already have almost 20 max level characters, I don't want any more, I literally went through that whole process for a set of armor. I'm in the process of doing it again on a void elf and frankly, I don't see why I can't ask my friend to carry me through some dungeons to speed the process along. I'm gonna delete the character, I've already seen and experienced everything in the game that could possibly engage me.
To top it off, I don't think it's fair to claim that it wasn't "intended" for max level players to carry their friends. It's not a huge exploit, it's just another way to play the game. Streamlining the process so that there's only ONE way to do it (slow questing or slow dungeons that we've already experienced a million times over) doesn't seem very fun to me. If I can skip that, I'm going to want to do it. The new levelling system is great for new players, not people that have already seen everything and are just looking to get a new set of armor for their race changed Nightborne character.
It's not just power leveling xp they messes with. I ran a random queued dungeon at 95 and I was getting 67xp a kill. From 1500ish to 67 is rediculous.
02/14/2018 09:12 PMPosted by Tatyanar...
You said it Girl~
Gurl the game was never 'intended' to just quest it was made as an OPEN WORLD meaning we could level and play the game how we wanted. If a high level friend wanted to help his low level friend in a dungeon run they could!
they always wanted you to do dungeons with peers of your level range. they always had a massive penalty to dungeon and group experience when you were being carried by a max level character. all they did was restore the penalty that was there before.
in cataclysm, my mage was carried from 40-60 through dungeons by a single 85 shadow priest that was the guild master. and yes, there was a massive XP penalty. vampiric embrace was passive back then, and i literally never had to worry about damaging or targetting stuff because the guild master killed everything in 6 seconds and i was mostly there to provide him arcane intellect and throw counterspells or decurses. i got to keep most of the loot. i just had to donate 20% of the materials i looted in his dungeons to the guild vaults.
This is a bunch of bull, by the way.
Just did a random dungeon on my 34 priest. I was 3 bubbles into the level, with 7 bubbles of rested experience.
I ended the dungeon at 3 bubbles away from level and still rested.
And to top it off? The dungeon quest gave an astounding HALF A BUBBLE of experience.
So yes, they increased the ending bonus EXP (I got 7 bubs just from that), but they SIGNIFICANTLY decreased the amount of EXP each mob/boss kill gives you, AS WELL AS DUNGEON QUESTS.
Before this patch, I burned through 18 bubbles of rested experience in one Dungeon, to give you an idea of how significantly the mob/boss EXP was nerfed, when I couldn't even burn through 7 this time.
Just did a random dungeon on my 34 priest. I was 3 bubbles into the level, with 7 bubbles of rested experience.
I ended the dungeon at 3 bubbles away from level and still rested.
And to top it off? The dungeon quest gave an astounding HALF A BUBBLE of experience.
So yes, they increased the ending bonus EXP (I got 7 bubs just from that), but they SIGNIFICANTLY decreased the amount of EXP each mob/boss kill gives you, AS WELL AS DUNGEON QUESTS.
Before this patch, I burned through 18 bubbles of rested experience in one Dungeon, to give you an idea of how significantly the mob/boss EXP was nerfed, when I couldn't even burn through 7 this time.
<span class="truncated">...</span>
Gurl the game was never 'intended' to just quest it was made as an OPEN WORLD meaning we could level and play the game how we wanted. If a high level friend wanted to help his low level friend in a dungeon run they could!
they always wanted you to do dungeons with peers of your level range. they always had a massive penalty to dungeon and group experience when you were being carried by a max level character. all they did was restore the penalty that was there before.
in cataclysm, my mage was carried from 40-60 through dungeons by a single 85 shadow priest that was the guild master. and yes, there was a massive XP penalty. vampiric embrace was passive back then, and i literally never had to worry about damaging or targetting stuff because the guild master killed everything in 6 seconds and i was mostly there to provide him arcane intellect and throw counterspells or decurses. i got to keep most of the loot. i just had to donate 20% of the materials i looted in his dungeons to the guild vaults.
Do me a favor and go look up a youtuber named wowhobbs. Watch his powerleveling and see how much XP they got from his dungeon runs. Blizzard knew about this for a long time and it was never considered an exploit or unintended. They even named a NPC in The Burning Crusade after this youtuber that basically started power leveling back in 2007 I think it was.
Seriously Blizzard, just throw my name into the ocean of unhappy players because of this change. BOOST FU**ING EXP already. I don't care if I have to pay a million gold for a potion per character I'll do it. This is fu**ing awful.
...The level scaling, while itself was not a bad idea, when combined with the heirloom nerfs, make for a very unpleasant experience. Especially as a caster, and especially when there are so many mobs that can interrupt and silence....
...But the damage that my leveling characters put out is piss-poor, to the point where it's tedious...
...It's pretty much 'stand in place, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2, 1, oops, shadow-locked, fire-locked, now I'll die and run back'.
For 110 levels.
I thought the scaling was a great idea at first, but I had a bad feeling about it doubling the time it would take to level. I ended up hitting max on most classes before it was introduced. Lucky for me.
One class I left was my Elemental Shaman. Boy was that a mistake. Leveling with the scaling on my shaman has been the single worst experience I have ever had in World of Warcraft. No exaggeration, and I've done some long rep grinds.
1 Lighting Bolt would only do 5% of the enemies health in damage, and take 2 seconds to cast. If you do the math, that's 40 seconds. Using other abilities, it's probably closer to 30 seconds. Killing 1 mob every 30 seconds is tedious, boring, and borderline torturous. No other way to put it.
This is the crux of the problem. Leveling is tedious. Not challenging, fun or engaging. Tedious.
What Blizzard have decided to do is treat symptoms of the problem, that is, people attempting to bypass the tedious grind, rather than fixing the tedious grind. Leveling from 60-100 had me considering quitting the game altogether.
I think Todd Howard of Bethesda Softworks said it best:
“Find things that a player does a lot. Make that fun and entertaining. Take a repetitive action and make it simple and fun.”
Maybe Blizzard should focus on making the leveling experience fun and entertaining, rather than an endless slog.
02/14/2018 04:19 PMPosted by OrnyxHi all,
From WoW’s earliest days, we’ve always had to take steps to limit experience gains for characters when grouped with someone of a drastically higher level. We recently became aware of a bug introduced in 7.3.5: a side-effect of the vastly expanded creature scaling was causing the logic to break when awarding XP in some situations. Earlier today, we applied a hotfix to creature experience that corrects this issue.
At the same time, we have significantly increased the experience awarded through queuing for random Normal dungeons from Classic through Draenor content. Running dungeons at the appropriate should feel rewarding, whether as a complement to or even an complete alternative to questing.
As always, we appreciate your feedback and will continue to keep a close eye on the pacing of the leveling experience in 7.3.5 and beyond.
You and your bosses are so full of it. You aren't fooling anybody.
Craptastic! Thank you for slowing us down even more. Removing XP potions wasn’t enough? this is such a blatant attempt to draw out subscriptions, and get more money. I don’t think players are as enamored with old content as you guys seem to think we are. I have already quested through the zones, and dungeons are my go-to for leveling alts. That is my personal choice and play style. My question is, why now? Thank you for making your game less enjoyable. You suck, Blizzard.
02/14/2018 09:09 PMPosted by Ilinaanirithey want you to explore the world and actually do open world quests. not sit in orgrimmar or stormwind where you press a button, spend an hour watching an anime on crunchy roll and check back with just 5 minutes left on the queue.
they also want you to actually engage yourself in the game, not mindlessly mash keys while you sit on netflix because at the point. you aren't engaged in the game, you are performing a different task and putting less than the bare minimum of a mobile game. that is not what they want.
Perhaps they should put some more effort into making their game engaging before level 100 then. Scaling was a start, but it wasn't a cure.
After leveling a nightborne to 110 the "official way" just to unlock heritage armor and having multiple characters to 110 i can say i simply just don't care to experience the story for the 20th time.
I am now leveling a void elf to unlock the heritage armor and i had to pick a class that could speed grind over a class i actually want to play because of this nonsense.
You guys have effectively turned the wow leveling experience into some atrocious version of Tom Clancy's The Division. The mobs give almost no experience, and are massive bullet sponges.
To put it simply, i wouldn't recommend my friends who have quit to come back because this is just a miserable experience. Id rather buy the heritage armor in the cash shop and never touch a low level zone every again after this new "amazing" leveling experience.
I am now leveling a void elf to unlock the heritage armor and i had to pick a class that could speed grind over a class i actually want to play because of this nonsense.
You guys have effectively turned the wow leveling experience into some atrocious version of Tom Clancy's The Division. The mobs give almost no experience, and are massive bullet sponges.
To put it simply, i wouldn't recommend my friends who have quit to come back because this is just a miserable experience. Id rather buy the heritage armor in the cash shop and never touch a low level zone every again after this new "amazing" leveling experience.
Bug or not the fact that Blizzard is actually trying to fix the situation and people are still upset makes it feel like they are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
02/14/2018 04:19 PMPosted by OrnyxHi all,
From WoW’s earliest days, we’ve always had to take steps to limit experience gains for characters when grouped with someone of a drastically higher level. We recently became aware of a bug introduced in 7.3.5: a side-effect of the vastly expanded creature scaling was causing the logic to break when awarding XP in some situations. Earlier today, we applied a hotfix to creature experience that corrects this issue.
At the same time, we have significantly increased the experience awarded through queuing for random Normal dungeons from Classic through Draenor content. Running dungeons at the appropriate should feel rewarding, whether as a complement to or even an complete alternative to questing.
As always, we appreciate your feedback and will continue to keep a close eye on the pacing of the leveling experience in 7.3.5 and beyond.
While this is a step in the right direction, and it's good to see that Blizzard is aware that the current post-7.3.5 experience gains are not at the levels they should be. This is simply not enough.
We either need more experience from quests and non-random dungeon content, or to simply boost the experience gain from heirloom pieces to offset the loss in xp and increase in time needed to kill all mobs.